Browser-safe color palette

as described in Dave Raggett's Introduction to HTML/CSS

Conventionally, text on the web appears in a variety of colors but links are almost always blue--so it's a good idea to choose colors besides blue for your text that is not part of a link! Links that the browser has visited or is visiting (visited and active links), and links that the computer's ving over are usually red, maroon, purple, or orange in color. Learn more about color choices below! Or view the table now!

(NOTE: Neither too much contrast-such as black on white (#FFFFFF on #000000) or red on blue (#FF0000 on #0000FF)-nor too little contrast-such as brown on beige-is good.

Too much contrast makes the letters appear to vibrate on the page!

For this reason, Reader's Digest prints its text on paper tinted slightly green!

Remember, if you cannot read your web page, no one else can either!

Black (and dark red too) goes well on light yellow, light green, light blue, or beige; white goes well with dark reds and browns.

Why red on white? Well, the color red actually has properties in common with the color black and darkness. Did you know that airline pilots who fly at night use red control panels--because this way their eyes do not need to readjust to the darkness outside, that is, they are not blinded from seeing into the night by too much light in the cockpit! At night, the color red becomes harder to see, merging with the black night (this is why stop signs are harder to see at night--they ought to have yellow borders or something I think!). For this reason, red is not a good color to wear when walking after dark, as no one will see you. One of the best colors to wear at night is actually light blue or aqua, because the visible colors at night center around the blue end of the spectrum! Perhaps this is because light moving away from us is red-shifted(The Doppler effect!)--and perhaps our eyes have come to associate light moving away with darkness--the sun moves to the west, a searchlight moves away, we leave a lit room or fire, and presto, it's dark! (Just a theory, but wanted to share it!)

AND, ONE MORE THING: See Raggett's link above for a discussion of color choices for people with color blindness: you want EVERYONE to be able to read your page!)

(ANOTHER EFFECT OF COLORS: red--and light colors this time--makes things look closer; blue--and dark colors this time--makes things look farther away! So sometimes red behaves like a light color and sometimes like a dark color!)